Category Archives: Politics

#BC Poli | Will John Horgan Win the Provincial Election in a Rout?

October 1, 2020BC Politics, PoliticsRaymond Tomlin

John Horgan and the BC NDP with a commanding lead in the second week of the 2020 election

At the beginning of the second week of the current 32-day British Columbia provincial election, according to a province-wide poll conducted by IPSOS Public Affairs’ Kyle Braid for Global BC, John Horgan’s B.C. NDP hold a commanding lead over both the B.C. Liberal party — in power from 2001 to 2016 — and the B.C. Greens that will not only return the New Democrats to power, but could very well end in an election rout, and an overwhelming majority for the only elected social democratic government in Canada.

“It’s not close,” says Braid. “The NDP started the campaign with an 18-point lead over the BC Liberals. Currently, 51% of decided voters say they would be most likely to support or lean towards the New Democrats. The BC Liberals are next at 33% support, followed by the Greens at 12%.

The NDP have a 25-point lead among women (53% NDP vs. 28% Libs) and a narrower, but still substantial, 11-point lead among men (49% Libs vs. 38% NDP).

The NDP has a large 26-point lead on Vancouver Island (51% NDP vs. 25% Libs) and a 23-point lead in Metro Vancouver (55% NDP vs. 32% Libs). Things are much closer in the Southern Interior/North, where the NDP has only a 5-point lead (44% NDP vs. 39% Libs). The Green Party does best on Vancouver Island at 20% support (vs. 11% in Metro Vancouver, 9% in Southern Interior/North).

B.C. NDP leader John Horgan, at 44%, has a huge lead over both B.C. Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson (14%) and recent winner of the contest for leadership of the B.C. Greens, Sonia Furstenau (6%) as the leader who British Columbians think would make the best Premier of B.C.

According to poll aggregator 338 Canada John Horgan’s NDP are on track to win as many as 69 seats in the British Columbia legislature (there are 87 ridings across the province), with Andrew Wilkinson’s B.C. Liberal party set to win as few as 18 seats, leaving the B.C. Greens without a seat in the house in Victoria. Be mindful, tho, these are early days in the B.C. election.
The election chances for all three B.C. political parties will likely come into clearer focus following the upcoming televised leaders’ debate, a date for which event has not been set as VanRamblings’ column goes to print.

For those who are interested, as of midnight, here are the number of seats filled by each party: NDP: 83/87 | Liberals: 82/87 | Greens: 44/87 | Libertarians: 11/87 | Conservatives: 8/87. In a press conference she held yesterday in Vancouver, the B.C. Greens’ Sonia Furstenau told reporters that it was unlikely the Greens would field candidates in many more ridings than have been filled to date, while both the B.C. NDP and the B.C. Liberals will have all their parties’ candidates in place no later than this weekend.

In the early days of Decision BC 2020, John Horgan and the B.C. NDP have gotten off to a near faultless start, with little interfering respecting the leader’s messaging — although Mr. Horgan was forced to respond to a tempest in a teapot issue that arose yesterday, when former B.C. NDP vice-president and 2017 Vancouver-False Creek NDP candidate Morgane Oger posted a selfie on Instagram on Monday as she stood in front of a framed photograph of graffiti reading “f*** the” with the rest of the text cropped out. CTV News obtained a photo of Ms. Oger posing with the entire photograph, showing a stone wall where the phrase f*** the police is fully legible, with a caption reading, “Art is a window into society’s soul.”

“That photo really frames the sentiment of people who are on the receiving end of policing, not because police officers themselves are discriminatory, but because society actually still tolerates discrimination through its enforcement,” Oger said in an interview yesterday morning.

John Horgan responded to the “controversy”, stating, “I know Morgane, I know her to be a passionate woman who’s focused on increasing the well-being of people in vulnerable situations. The sentiment expressed in the photo on Morgane’s Instagram feed does not reflect my sentiment.”

B.C. Liberal leader Andrew “The Grouch” Wilkinson campaign off to an unsalutary start

Poor Andrew Wilkinson. Not only is he an almost anonymous political figure in our province, with a leadership standing of a sorry 14%, the woebegone B.C. Liberal leader has had to contend with one very real candidate controversy after another. If this keeps up, his political fortunes are toast.

Abbotsford South B.C. Liberal candidate, Bruce Banman — the former Abbotsford Mayor best known for ordering city staff to lay chicken manure down on a homeless encampment, while calling homeless Abbotsford residents, “drug using criminals” — was forced by Andrew Wilkinson to apologize for his intemperate remarks and actions.
Meanwhile, in the riding of Langley East, B.C. Liberal candidate Margaret Kunst came under fire for opposing a rainbow crosswalk for the township.
And lest we forget, Chilliwack-Kent MLA Laurie Throness continues to face criticism for running advertisements in the Christian lifestyle publication The Light Magazine, which has included anti-LGBT articles including content against SOGI resources in schools and in support of conversion therapy. Not to mention which, just this morning, several Chilliwack and Tri-Cities organizations have written a joint letter to Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson calling for the removal of Chilliwack-Kent candidate Laurie Throness over his expressed views on conversion therapy, a controversial practice that aims to convert LGBTQ+ members that the federal government is moving to ban.
And just last evening, B.C. NDP Delta North candidate Ravi Kahon alleged Surrey-Fleetwood B.C. Liberal candidate Garry Thind had violated the B.C. Elections Act. Lawyer Rachel Roy reported to Elections B.C. that dozens of members of a WhatsApp group called “Garry Thind-Fleetwood” were asked to collect information including names, dates of birth, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and a piece of government-issued identification (e.g. Social Insurance number, driver’s license number) from voters, in order that Mr. Thind’s campaign staff could order mail-in ballots to his election headquarters, with an eye to campaign staff filling out and posting the mail-in ballots without the express knowledge of the voters they were purporting to represent — a fraudulent activity, and a clear violation of the B.C. Elections Act.

B.C. Liberal leader Wilkinson also found himself in hot water with former senior Liberal party adviser, Martyn Brown, for “arguably the most cynical, most dishonest, and most outright dumb all-time acts of desperate vote-buying” when Mr. Wilkinson vowed to scrap B.C.’s 7% provincial sales for a year and then cut it to 3% the next year.

“When they go low, we go lower, might as well be his motto,” writes Mr. Brown in a column in The Straight. “It shows that Wilkinson’s B.C. Liberals have learned absolutely nothing from their well-deserved banishment from office following former premier Christy Clark’s pathetic attempt to throw her party’s “principles” out the door, in her vain effort to cling to power.

Before the COVID pandemic brought our economy to a standstill, crippling government revenues in the process, the sales tax was projected to yield $7.5 billion to provincial coffers. It is the B.C. government’s second-largest source of funding, accounting for some 22% of total taxation revenues. Deliberately losing whatever remains of the government’s drastically reduced revenue stream wouldn’t just be grossly irresponsible; it would be insane.

This is what the lust for absolute power does to otherwise smart people like the Brainiac Wilkinson: it turns them and anyone who votes for them into partisan lunatics, devoid of all sense and principle. Fiscal discipline was supposed to be the B.C. Liberals’ central tenet. No longer.”

Gosh, if this is how a longtime friend of, and senior party official within, the B.C. Liberal party is expounding on the political acumen respecting his beloved provincial political party, one is left to wonder how the average British Columbian feels about Mr. Wilkinson’s crass attempt to buy votes?
For all that, Andrew Wilkinson has to thank his lucky stars that John Horgan called the election when he did, months before Justice Austin Cullen’s Commission on money laundering within the province of British Columbia provides a summary report to government on the extent, growth, evolution and methods of money laundering in gaming and horse racing, real estate, unregulated entities and persons who provide banking-like services, the use of shell companies, trusts, securities and financial instruments for the purposes of money laundering, luxury goods, and … well, you get the picture. Money laundering in B.C.: a legacy of the Christy Clark government that, due to B.C. Liberal government inaction, distorted British Columbia’s economy, fuelled the opioid crisis and overheated the real estate market.

As VanRamblings was saying to a friend yesterday, and as we reported in an earlier column, the government of John Horgan is the first British Columbia government in more than a half century not to be dogged by controversy and the taint of corruption. So much for British Columbia’s vaunted reputation as the disreputable wild, wild west of Canadian politics.

#BC Poli | The Whining is Over, the Election is Now Underway

September 29, 2020BC Politics, PoliticsRaymond Tomlin

A David Eby Vancouver-Point Grey supporters townhall. Highlighted, Vancouver-False Creek NDP candidate, Brenda Bailey. Top left, Gala Milne, David Eby’s campaign manager.

On Sunday afternoon, September 27th at 4pm, Vancouver-Point Grey MLA — and, until the current provincial election was called by BC NDP leader, John Horgan, Minister of Justice and Attorney General for the province of British Columbia — David Eby, held a well-organized and well-attended Zoom campaign townhall of longtime supporters, campaign workers and campaign staff, hosted by the very bright, accomplished and talented New Democratic Party tyro candidate for Vancouver-Hastings, Niki Sharma.

Also present and accounted for: Meghan Sali (top row), host of The Dash with David Eby podcast (also available as an Apple podcast, and through the Google Play store); Vancouver-Langara NDP candidate, Tesicca Truong — acclaimed housing, community, and climate change policy strategist — to the left of Ms. Bailey; Stefan Avlijas, master of all he surveys, and BCGEU digital campaign specialist (this is not his first rodeo with the avuncular, personable and accomplished, Mr. Eby), middle fourth row down; as well as the love of David Eby’s life and mother to his two wonderful children (migosh, they’re growing so quickly — note should be made that David is an incredibly great dad), Dr. Calley Lynch; dogged co-campaign fundraiser and former director of communications with the BCNU, the highly-regarded Shirley Ross (her hubby, the very fine gentleman and oenophile, Bill Tieleman, is to be found on another screen); and bottom row, in the middle, some ne’er-do-well, we’d all be better off ignoring, old fart that he is; and so, so many more who will move the sun, the Earth, the stars to ensure David Eby’s re-election, come Thursday, November 12th, cuz the hand-counting of mail-in ballots — of which there will likely be one million — will not start until 13 days after election day, Saturday, October 24th.

As of midnight Sunday night, Elections BC reports that 406,000 British Columbians had asked to have mail-in ballots posted to them. Unlike Donald Trump’s America, we in Canada respect our sacred institutions of government, our post office and non-partisan agency, Elections BC, charged with the conduct of elections in our province, so mail-in ballots — which will achieve record numbers in the provincial election of 2020 — is a feature of our current election British Columbians are assured is fair, proper and necessary, and in the midst of an unprecedented 21st century pandemic, an absolute necessity. VanRamblings will be walking over our mail-in ballot (which we received last Friday) to an advance poll nearby us, the morning of Thursday, October 15th, because we want our vote counted on E-Day.
Advance polls, as above, will open two weeks from this Thursday, on October 15th, and run thru til Wednesday, October 21st, and will operate each day from 8 a.m. through until 8 p.m., staffed by your neighbours. Go to the Where to Vote page on the Elections BC website for more information, to have any B.C. election questions you may have answered.

For the years she sat as Chairperson of the Vancouver Park Board and as a Board Commissioner, VanRamblings had the privilege of observing the work of Niki Sharma, who we came to know as a democrat of the first order, engaging and yet no nonsense, focused always on the work of those who elected her to office (as well as those who did not cast a vote for her), extraordinarily bright and articulate, accomplished, loyal to her peers and her party, open and available to talk with anyone, any time, hard working, dedicated & a devoted public servant possessed of unparalleled integrity.
Niki Sharma is one of those once in a lifetime political figures, a change maker who works for each and every one of us, towards the creation of a better, a fairer, a more inclusive and a more just city, province and world.
And now, Niki Sharma is the B.C. New Democratic Party candidate for Vancouver Hastings. Lucky BC NDP, lucky residents of the provincial riding of Vancouver Hastings, and lucky us — every citizen of British Columbia.
Early on, when Ms. Sharma was seeking the Vancouver Hastings NDP nomination, we had naysayers call us to regale us with tales of the old shibboleth, that Vancouver’s Chinese population will not vote for an Indo-Canadian candidate. And not just that, but that the 2017 British Columbia election in the riding of Vancouver Hastings was oh-so-close, and recently retired provincial Minister for Social Development and Poverty Reduction, Shane Simpson, had just barely squeaked into office in the 2017 election.
Um. Really? The correct information as to the outcome of the 2017 B.C. provincial election, in the riding of Vancouver Hastings, is easily attainable:

The above said, the British Columbia New Democratic Party, and Vancouver Hastings NDP candidate Niki Sharma, her riding executive, and her many, many supporters are not taking anything for granted.
As is the case in every election, candidates must fight for every vote, and fight to gain the confidence of the electorate who reside in the riding where she or he is seeking to become the British Columbia Member of the Legislature representing the interests of the good citizens of the riding, where s/he has come forward as a candidate for the party supporting her / his provincial riding candidacy.
All of which is to say, if you have the time and the energy, if you can spare a few dollars, supporting Niki Sharma’s, David Eby’s, Brenda Bailey’s and / or Tesicca Truong’s candidacies, there is no finer activity to which you might dedicate yourself than playing a role in ensuring the election to office of any one of these outstanding BC NDP candidates. As for VanRamblings, we are donating one per cent of our annual gross income to supporting BC NDP candidates in the current British Columbia election — you should, too.

And, finally for today, this: as was the case in New Brunswick in their provincial election earlier this month, and as will be the case in Saskatchewan, in their scheduled election next month, candidates for office in the various political parties will be, and are, pooling their resources, and working closely as teams of (most generally) three candidates for office.
VanRamblings has learned that in 2020, Vancouver-Point Grey NDP candidate David Eby, Vancouver Hastings NDP candidate Niki Sharma, and Vancouver Fairview NDP candidate George Heyman will work closely together, in some cases combining election operations staff and office resources, less for budgetary considerations and more as a practicable initiative responding to the exigencies and demands of our current pandemic — which, by the way, is not going away anytime soon, so that now, this very moment in our pandemic, is the best time to conduct a provincial election, to ensure that the citizens of our province have at the seat of power in Victoria, a government that best represents their interests, will best respond to their and our collective health needs, and are best able to rebuild an economy that serves all of us, and not just the wealthy few.

#VanPoli | Vancouver City Council | Wiebe MUST Resign | Pt. 3

September 24, 2020#VanPoli Civic Politics, BC Politics, Politics, VancouverRaymond Tomlin

Today on VanRamblings, the third and final column on Green Party of Vancouver City Councillor, Michael Weibe, and why he must do the honourable thing, and immediately resign his position on Council.

Anything Goes | The Big Cover-Up, and the Trumpian World of the “We Will Not Be Questioned. Don’t Try” Green Party of Vancouver

Within 57 minutes, less than an hour, long serving Vancouver City Councillor Adriane Carr, following the publication of an article by Charlie Smith, the editor of The Georgia Straight, on the findings of the report of veteran municipal affairs lawyer Raymond Young, mandating that her Green Party of Vancouver City Council colleague, Michael Wiebe, must immediately vacate his office and resign from Council — arising from an egregious, self-dealing Conflict of Interest, where Mr. Young found that the Councillor had placed the interests of two businesses he owns above the interests of the citizens of Vancouver — published the tweet above.

Three-term Councillor Adriane Carr might well be seen to have adopted a “shoot the messenger” political strategy, a troubling extension of the consistently discouraging modus operandi of the U.S. President — who always goes after those who question the veracity of his character — and as is the case with Mr. Trump, the allegations she makes in her tweet are absolutely fact free, and utterly without foundation. Apparently, Councillor Carr is unfamiliar with the central tenets of Crisis Management 101.

For the record, as VanRamblings reported yesterday, when Raymond Young was brought on by City Manager Sadhu Johnston to conduct an investigation of the actions of Councillor Michael Wiebe, arising from a complaint filed by non-practicing lawyer, Michael Redmond, Mr. Wiebe readily agreed to Mr. Young taking on the role of investigator, committing to his full co-operation with the investigation.

Again, as VanRamblings published yesterday, in fact, at no point over the course of the summer did Councillor Wiebe either meet with Mr. Young, or provide answers to any of the questions submitted in writing by Mr. Young to Mr. Wiebe, nor did Councillor Wiebe provide any aid whatsoever to Mr. Young in the conduct of the Code of Conduct complaint that had been lodged against him, and Mr. Young had been hired to investigate.

As one of Councillor Wiebe’s colleagues told VanRamblings yesterday …

“Michael likes to skate by, generally poorly prepared and cavalier in his approach. Certainly, that’s what many of his colleagues in the Green Party have observed, and as Commissioners found during his tenure on Park Board, that’s the way he conducted himself throughout the 2014 – 2018 period. Seems Michael Wiebe didn’t learn very much during his first term of elected office, and if the present circumstance is any indication, still hasn’t. Michael has clearly decided that his best strategy is to hunker down, and play the innocent card. We’ll see how that works out for him.”

In her tweet above, Councillor Carr expresses concern about “no due process”, therein attacking not just the integrity of the process conducted by investigator Raymond Young, but impugning the professional reputation, character and integrity of one of Canada’s most respected jurists, as she once again adopts Donald Trump’s practice to libel the person whose opinion s/he doesn’t agree with. Councillor Carr seems to have learned her Trumpian lesson well: attack, attack, attack — City Manager, Sadhu Johnston; veteran municipal affairs lawyer and UBC professor, Raymond Young; and her colleague, Mayor Kennedy Stewart — and add libel, unrighteous indignation, and character assassination as the cherry on top.

One can only anticipate what the B.C. Supreme Court Justice who rules on the matter of whether to remove Councillor Wiebe from office will have to say, as he reads his ruling in open Court, about Vancouver City Councillor Adriane Carr’s clearly libelous, wrong-headed, & utterly self-serving tweet.

Councillor Adriane Carr is not alone in adopting Trumpian tactics, although Green Party of Vancouver School Board trustee Lois Chan-Pedley is somewhat more measured and kindly (a fan of Dr. Henry, no doubt) in her Trumpian tactics of obfuscation and misdirection (what can we say? We like being called “Raymond”, Raymond over Ray, although investigator / lawyer Raymond Young prefers Ray over Raymond — and there you have it).

VanRamblings is mightily pleased that Ms. Chan-Pedley enjoyed her Philosophy 101 course in her early days of university, and that the concept of “appeal to authority” made such an impression on her young mind. VanRamblings, too, enjoyed Philosophy 101, albeit approximately 40 years prior to Ms. Chan-Pedley, and we too retain fond memories of that most important, and even defining, academic course of study.

The above said, we believe she has inferred a fallacious syllogism.

In Logic (a central tenet of the philosophical approach to an argument), Appeal to Authority is an informal fallacy of weak induction. This fallacy occurs when someone uses the testimony of an authority in order to warrant their conclusion, but the authority appealed to is not an expert in the field in question. Tch, tch, Ms. Chan-Pedley.

Raymond E. Young, not an authority? Um.

Raymond Young studied at the University of British Columbia, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Classical Chinese Language and Literature; thereafter, Mr. Young attained a Masters Degree in Community and Regional Planning; and in 1978, a Bachelor of Laws.

Called to the bar in 1979, after articling at Lawson Lundell Lawson and Macintosh, in 1982, Mr. Young established the law firm of Baker Young & Anderson. Ray, in addition to his work as a municipal affairs lawyer, has taught at the University of British Columbia, focusing on Land Use Law in UBC’s Faculty of Law for a period of five years, spending the following decade as a Professor of Municipal Law at the university.

Named a Canada-US Fulbright Scholar, Raymond Young spent a term as visiting Scholar at Georgia State University Law School in Atlanta.

On January 17th, 2011, Raymond Young was appointed as a Queen’s Counsel; carrying the Q.C. designation is considered a mark of prestige.

Raymond Young has practicd law in British Columbia for 40 years, as a barrister and as a solicitor, acting for local governments. Mr Young continues to practice law as a municipal affairs lawyer, to this day.

And now, a bit of a digression, if you will allow such …

The Honourable Madam Justice Francesca V. Marzari of the B.C. Supreme Court

On December 29, 2017, Francesca Marzari (pictured above) was sworn in as a justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, before a small gathering of family members, colleagues and staff. Francesca’s mother, Darlene, was a member of The Electors Action Movement majority on Vancouver City Council between 1972 and 1980, and then a Member of the Legislative Assembly for Vancouver-Point Grey from 1986 to 1996, during which time, as Minister of Municipal Affairs, she brought in British Columbia’s innovative regional planning legislation.

The younger Ms. Mazari’s legal career was spent entirely at the prestigious law firm of Young Anderson, the British Columbia local government law boutique she joined as an articled student after clerking at the B.C. Court of Appeal, following graduation from UBC Law. At Young Anderson, she “sponged up” the intricacies of local government law from founding partners Raymond Young, Q.C., her principal, and Grant Anderson.

To answer Green Party of Vancouver Board of Education trustee Lois Chan-Pedley’s allegation that VanRamblings has engaged in an untoward and unjust “appeal to authority” in our recognition of Raymond Young — who we have known personally and professionally for 37 years, and who we know to be a person of the highest integrity, personally and in the practice of law — which is to say, that Ms. Chan-Pedley alleges that Mr. Young is not an expert in the field of municipal law … well, Ms. Chan-Pedley, we hope that yours — and your Green Party colleague, Adriane Carr’s — concerns have been both addressed and alleviated. One can only hope that when the matter proceeds to Court, as it most assuredly will, that both Ms. Carr and Ms. Chan-Pedley do not draw the ire of the Court, in questioning the professional integrity of Raymond E. Young, barrister and solicitor, long one of Canada’s most respected jurists, and a Queen’s Counsel who continues to this day his much respected practice in the field of municipal law.

Crisis Management 101. Mandatory Reading for Councillor Michael Wiebe

From the outset, the response by Councillor Michael Wiebe; the Green Party of Vancouver; Mayor Kennedy Stewart; City Manager, Sadhu Johnston; and Vancouver City Councillors has been botched. It’s almost as if these persons were completely unaware of the concept of “crisis management.”

Here’s what should have happened when Georgia Straight editor Charlie Smith published his blockbuster article last Sunday morning, and didn’t happen: an adherence to the central tenets of crisis management.

Leadership. The Mayor | When things go wrong, citizens look to leaders. At the time of a crisis, the Mayor needs to be seen to be taking charge and providing direction, to take responsibility, to offer reassurance that there will be action, that they will encourage action. They lead.

Michael Wiebe | Should have been available, acted swiftly, and in an authentic manner. Taken responsibility. Admitted mistakes. Promised to do better in the future. Have been responsive and transparent in responding to the media. Listened, and spoken with gravitas when answering questions and addressing issues, and with humility. Answered all questions that were put to him. Not lost his cool, ever. Be of the mindset that “perception is reality” — this is a question of his humanity, not necessarily of right or wrong. Disclosed all bad news up front. Never said, “no comment.”

Emphasize what he’s doing to remedy the situation in which he finds himself embroiled, as well as what preventative measures he will employ in the future, so there’s no re-occurrence of a perceived impropriety. And, under no circumstance, assess “blame” to others.

Sad to say, none of the advice above was adhered to. Michael Wiebe, the City, the Mayor, and elected Vancouver City Councillors have lost control of the narrative. Aggrieved citizens taking the matter to the British Columbia Supreme Court is, inevitably, the next logical step toward resolution of the current inauspicious circumstance involving Councillor Michael Wiebe.

There is a great deal more that VanRamblings would wish to write respecting the issue we have addressed three days of this week, how the dysfunction of our current Council has led to the current circumstance involving Councillor Wiebe, an expansion and insight into the issues Georgia Straight editor Charlie Smith published yesterday, involving the role Mayor Kennedy Stewart’s office may have played in Mr. Wiebe’s decision to vote on patio permits, the source of the current pickle in which he finds himself.

We will, however, leave these matters for the moment, with this …

The audio broadcast of the interview with Councillor Wiebe, conducted by CBC Early Edition host Stephen Quinn the morning of September 21st, where Mr. Wiebe babbles incessantly and can’t quite seem to shut up, disallowing the host from asking questions (which, most assuredly, raised Mr. Quinn’s hackles, leaving questions to be asked on another day);

Councillor Michael Wiebe’s statement in response to the recently completed Conflict of Interest probe; and …

The 39th always glorious and life-enhancing annual Vancouver International Film Festival gets underway today — that, and our current provincial election, will be VanRamblings’ focus over the coming fourteen days.

But make no mistake, Mr. Wiebe is not out of the soup with VanRamblings, not by a long shot. We’ll return to this subject again and again and again.

#VanPoli | Vancouver City Council | Wiebe MUST Resign | Pt. 2

September 23, 2020#VanPoli Civic Politics, BC Politics, Politics, VancouverRaymond Tomlin

Say Goodbye | Green Party of Vancouver elected officials currently sitting on City Council, School Board and Park Board (save David Wong, pictured lower right)

Continuing from Part One of our three-part series on why Vancouver City Councillor Michael Wiebe must resign his position on Council …
Stalemate | Aggrieved Citizens Head to the B.C. Supreme Court

With receipt of the investigator’s report written by respected municipal affairs lawyer and UBC professor, Raymond E. Young, submitted on September 12, 2020 to Vancouver City Manager Sadhu Johnston, and Mayor Kennedy Stewart, mandating that Green Party of Vancouver City Councillor Michael Wiebe is duty bound to resign his seat on Council, arising from an egregious Code of Conduct violation and undeclared Conflict of Interest, and that Mr. Wiebe not further be allowed to run for office for any elected body in the period prior to the next municipal election (in the autumn of 2022), and the subsequent refusal — thus far — by Councillor Wiebe, or any of his Green Party of Vancouver colleagues, to validate Mr. Young’s findings and recommendation, the question arises …
Where do the good citizens of Vancouver, and Mr. Wiebe’s colleagues on Vancouver City Council go from here, what comes next in the process of resolution respecting the scandalous fiasco that currently consumes both the attention of Vancouver’s beleaguered City Councillors, and citizens? Vancouver City Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung states in the tweet above, posted on the morning of September 21st, 2020, that she and other Councillors have a legal obligation that precludes our elected Councillors from speaking on an “open code of conduct investigation.” In point of fact, there is no “open” code of conduct investigation — that investigation came to a conclusion on the morning of Saturday, September 12th, when investigator and lawyer Raymond E. Young submitted his completed report to Vancouver City Manager Sadhu Johnston, and to the office of the Mayor, Kennedy Stewart.

Readers should know that on Monday morning, September 21st, 2020, Francie J Connell, the City of Vancouver’s longtime Director of Legal Services, posted an e-mail to Mayor and Council advising our elected officials that they may not discuss the matter of the recommendation made by Raymond E. Young mandating that their fellow Councillor Michael Wiebe must resign his office — neither with each other, nor most particularly in the public weal, lest they themselves find that they are charged with a Code of Conduct violation. Such order by the city’s top legal official effectively muzzles our elected officials. Wonder why you haven’t heard boo from Lisa Dominato, Colleen Hardwick, Rebecca Bligh, Christine Boyle, Mayor Kennedy Stewart, and the remaining members of Council in the current circumstance involving Councillor Wiebe? Now, you know why.

Vancouver City Council, 2018 thru 2022, left to right: Councillors Rebecca Bligh, Christine Boyle, Colleen Hardwick, Pete Fry, Adriane Carr, Mayor Kennedy Stewart, Melissa De Genova, Jean Swanson, Michael Wiebe, Lisa Dominato, and Sarah Kirby-Yung.

There is an option open to Vancouver’s City Councillors to bring a motion forward to Council mandating that their colleague, Michael Wiebe, resign his seat on Council, requiring a two-third vote of Council in favour of such a motion. Were such a motion to pass, there would be no force of law behind it, as the Municipal Affairs Act of British Columbia does not allow for the removal of an elected official by her or his fellow Council colleagues.

The only other avenue of redress should Councillor Michael Wiebe choose not to voluntarily resign as a City Councillor in the city of Vancouver, would be for 10 citizens / registered voters within the city of Vancouver to take the matter to the British Columbia Supreme Court, asking the courts to enforce the recommendation of the authorized investigator hired by the City of Vancouver, to enforce the investigator’s mandated recommendation: that Councillor Wiebe be ordered by the Court to vacate his Council seat.
VanRamblings is advised that such a process is now underway.

Not to get too deep into the woods, but quite honestly Michael Wiebe and City of Vancouver Councillors, and the Mayor do not want this matter proceeding to the courts. Why not?
Any time one goes to court, not only can the outcome of the court proceeding not reasonably be predicted, the Supreme Court Justice could very well expand the scope of the proceedings, and rule in ways that Councillors and the City might find injurious, substantively limiting the power and authority of elected officials and staff at The Hall going forward.
A digression. Here’s an example of how things can go awry. In 2006, the Board of Variance sued the Mayor and Council for their unprecedented decision to remove all of the appointed members of the Board, to be replaced by individuals associated with the majority party in civic office. Respected jurist George McIntosh — then considered to be one of the top 25 lawyers in Canada, and at present a British Columbia Supreme Court Justice — was hired to argue the City’s case. The position of the City prevailed — a new Board was appointed by Mayor Sam Sullivan’s Council.
Although the matter had not been raised during the court proceeding, in his ruling, the Supreme Court Justice who heard the matter, found that a central provision of the mandate of Boards of Variance in British Columbia was ultra vires, ordering the revocation of the authority of Boards of Variance to hear “third party appeals” — which is to say, from that day forward Boards of Variance, as they had done for 55 years, could no longer provide a forum for aggrieved citizens to argue that the city (or more particularly, developers) must not move forward with a development citizens believed was contrary to the best interests of, or was detrimental to, the citizenry of a neighbourhood within the city where they reside.
Here’s what VanRamblings believes will happen when the matter of Councillor Michael Wiebe’s resignation from Vancouver City Council, arising from an egregious conflict of interest, and self-dealing, is heard by the Court: the Court will order Mr. Wiebe to vacate his Council seat forthwith.
VanRamblings believes, however, that the Justice will not limit her / his jurisdiction in the matter to the simple removal of Mr. Wiebe from office. Rather, we believe that the complainants will be awarded court costs, such that Mr. Wiebe — and the Green Party of Vancouver — will be liable for tens of thousands of dollars for having brought the matter forward to the Courts, when the simplest resolution to the matter would have been for Councillor Wiebe to abide by the recommendation of the investigator.
In addition, it is probable that the Justice will revoke the provisions of the Code of Conduct of the City of Vancouver, a code that serves to prevent Councillors from properly carrying out their responsibilities to the citizens of Vancouver who elected them to office. Even more, it is highly probable that the Justice will effectively re-write existing provincial municipal affairs law that precludes members of an elected body from removing an elected official who has engaged in conduct detrimental to the interests of the citizenry — going forward, then, any elected official who “acts out” in an unparliamentary fashion, be it on Council, School Board or - in Vancouver - Park Board, may be removed from office, either by a two-thirds vote of her / his colleagues, or arising from an investigative report recommendation that the elected official be removed from office.

Further, VanRamblings believes it to be entirely likely that, sooner than later, the province of British Columbia will step in to bring resolution to matters respecting Councillor Wiebe’s removal from Vancouver City Council. Although there is a provincial election underway, and Ministers of the Crown are now candidates, and not officials of the government carrying out their ministerial responsibilities, it is entirely likely that British Columbia’s Deputy Minister of Municipal Affairs, Kaye Krishna, could ask the Deputy Minister for the Attorney General, Richard Fyfe, to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate the particular circumstance involving Councillor Michael Wiebe.